Selma Koss Holtz; collector with a contagious love of art, people

She called the wagon, which often also carried art colleagues or her reluctant children, “my office.’’

In the 1960s, as she began her illustrious career as an art and antiques dealer, appraiser in American art, collector, and curator, all self-taught, Mrs. Holtz drove another station wagon, searching out New England antiques and fine arts often with two friends, Robert Skinner, founder of Skinner Auctioneers & Appraisers, and art dealer Robert Cleaves, both now deceased.

“Selma was a dealer’s dealer,’’ said Steve Fletcher, Americana director for Skinner, with houses in Boston and Marlborough. “She liked American painters of the last quarter of the 19th century and into the 20th. She had a great eye and shined a light on them.’’

Apart from her talents in the art world, Mrs. Holtz had other qualities that drew people to her. “Selma was a dynamic person,’’ said Fletcher, a friend of 30 years. “She was wickedly funny, with a sardonic wit. She was a fabulous hostess. She was one of the best storytellers around. Her take on things was razor sharp. She was a very intelligent woman with an incredible memory.’’

Mrs. Holtz, who was credited with discovering a fake painting attributed to a well-known artist and who loaned much of her own large art collection to various museums, died Sept. 9 of cancer at her Newton home. She was 78.

“Selma was a larger-than-life character in the Boston commercial art scene,’’ said Karen Keane, chief executive of Skinner. “She was a savvy dealer in a wonderful under-the-radar manner. She had no office. She was extremely opinionated. She knew what she liked and was able to negotiate her way in a world not easy for a woman. She had a great eye and a sense of connoisseurship. She also had a naughty side, which was infectious.’’

The Selma Koss Holtz collection included paintings by John Joseph Enneking, John Marin, N.C. Wyeth, William Bradford, Dennis Bunker, Lilla Cabot Perry, and Charles Woodbury, according to her son, Herbert L. Holtz of Charlestown. It also included bronzes by Augustus Saint Gaudens, Jo Davidson, and Kahlil Gibran, he said, along with etchings by Howard Pyle and Rockwell Kent.

Her passion for art was contagious, said J. Owen Todd, a Boston lawyer and former superior court judge, a longtime friend.

“Selma was not only a connoisseur and collector of art, but an apostle of art,’’ he said. “She instilled her passion for art in others, making them students and eventually collectors.’’

Mrs. Holtz had a detective’s eye for paintings. Her son said she exposed as fake a painting that appeared to have been signed by the Impressionist landscape artist John Henry Twachtman, who died in 1902, because the buildings in it were not built until World War I.

“Selma was not only interested in art, but in all things that reflected refinement,’’ Todd said. “She was famous for hosting elegant dinner parties and arranging interesting conversation and created connections between many people of similar tastes.’’

The parties that Mrs. Holtz hosted at her Newton home - with its candelabras, exquisite table settings, mounds of delectable food prepared by Mrs. Holtz, and its fascinating guests - were talked about as much as her achievements in the art world.

“As a hostess and curator,’’ her son said, “mother was a successor to Isabella Stewart Gardner, except we had a wide variety of guests that often included a drag queen, whereas she had John Singer Sargent.’’

Those who attended Mrs. Holtz’s parties never forgot them. “Martha Stewart had nothing on Selma, right down to the silverware and the china,’’ said James Bakker, executive director of the Plymouth Monument and the Provincetown Museum.

“Selma was one of my mentors,’’ he said. “She was great in encouraging young dealers and directed me to the first artist’s estate I ever handled. She would go out on an antique prowl and turn up some amazing treasures.’’

She was born in Auburn, Maine, daughter of Joseph Koss, a Russian immigrant who started out as a fruit peddler and worked his way to ownership of shoe factories in northern Maine. She graduated from Bates College with a major in English in 1955.

In 1956, she married Norman Holtz, a labor lawyer, and they moved to Buffalo. In 1959, they moved to Massachusetts and settled in a house in the Waban section of Newton. The marriage ended 14 years later, their son said, but they remained close friends. Mr. Holtz died in 2007.

“Selma was the quintessential Jewish mother,’’ said Karen Matthews of Marblehead, a friend of 37 years. “As a single mom, she was tireless in her efforts to ensure her children had the best of everything, especially a terrific education.’’

“Selma was a sassy and fun-loving woman who loved to tell a naughty story or two,’’ Matthews said, recalling Mrs. Holtz’s “marvelous Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve celebrations, with guests ranging from art, literary, theater, dance troupes, drag queens, and witty folks of all types.’’

Her cocktail napkins captured her spirit, “You’re only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely,’’ one said.

While Mrs. Holtz worked with a number of museums, she maintained close ties to the end with the Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine, and her expertise and research is recognized in a number of its catalogues, among them, American Impressionists in 2000 and paintings of Enneking in 2001.

Michael Culver, former director of the Ogunquit museum, now director of Naples Museum in Florida, recalled her as “a great source of research’’ while he was at Ogunquit. “Selma would call you out of the blue at 8 at night or 1 in the morning and talk for hours about art,’’ he said. “It was always a learning experience.’’

Though hospitalized in her final illness, Mrs. Holtz dispatched her daughter-in-law and nurses to buy paintings at an auction. They returned after hospital hours with her treasures.

In addition to her son, Mrs. Holtz leaves a daughter, Jane, of Charlestown; two brothers, Herbert Koss and Edward Koss, both of Lewiston, Maine; and two grandchildren.

At Ogunquit Museum, where her name is “everywhere in the collection,’’ Ron Crusan, its director, said there will be a memorial exhibition in her name in the spring. The Selma Koss Holtz Acquisition Fund has been initiated as a permanent memorial there.